‘She almost threatened me,’ Mrs. Damerel pursued, with timid sweetness. ‘Do you think she is the kind of person to plot any harm against one?’
‘She had better not try it on,’ said Crewe, in his natural voice. Then, as if recollecting himself, he pursued more softly: ‘But I was going to speak of her. You haven’t heard that Miss. Lord has taken a position in the new branch of that Dress Supply Association?’
Mrs. Damerel kept an astonished silence.
‘There can’t be any doubt of it; I have been told on the best authority. She is in what they call the “club-room,” a superintendent. It’s a queer thing; what can have led her to it?’
‘I must make inquiries,’ said Mrs. Damerel, with an air of concern. ‘How sad it is, Mr. Crewe, that these young relatives of mine,—almost the only relatives I have,—should refuse me their confidence and their affection. Pray, does Horace know of what his sister is doing?’
‘I thought I wouldn’t speak to him about it until I had seen you.’
‘How very kind! How grateful I am to you for your constant thoughtfulness!’
Why Crewe should have practised such reticence, why it signified kindness and thoughtfulness to Mrs. Damerel, neither he nor she could easily have explained. But their eyes met, with diffident admiration on the one side, and touching amiability on the other. Then they discussed Nancy’s inexplicable behaviour from every point of view; or rather, Mrs. Damerel discussed it, and her companion made a pretence of doing so. Crewe’s manner had become patently artificial; he either expressed himself in trivial phrases, which merely avoided silence, or betrayed an embarrassment, an abstraction, which caused the lady to observe him with all the acuteness at her command.
You haven’t seen her lately?’ she asked, when Crewe had been staring at the window for a minute or two.
‘Seen her?—No; not for a long time.’